


If not for you, why would I exist?

by jenesaisquoi



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Rituals, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-04
Updated: 2013-02-04
Packaged: 2017-11-28 03:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenesaisquoi/pseuds/jenesaisquoi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is weaving a spell of words around Dean, sinking him into the embrace of love, until Dean realizes that there's more at stake than just a fun romp in the sheets. What kind of world would there be without the angel?</p><p>Inspired by "Et si tu n'existais pas" by Joe Dassin and uncompromisingly sappy and accidentally angst-ridden at parts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If not for you, why would I exist?

“Some days I just think it’d be better if I was never born,” Dean says in a fit of self-pity, despairing at the hand he has been dealt in life. How to defeat the Morning Star? “No Michael-sword, no apocalypse.”

“Et si tu n’existais pas, dis-moi pourquoi j’existerais?” Castiel responds, gently pushing Dean to sit on the bed. “To walk in a world without you, without hope or regret.”

Dean, for his part, isn’t sure how to respond, powerless but to be lead by Castiel. The low timber of his voice is casting a melodic rhythm through his veins and he’s transfixed by the foreign syllables. Drowning, drowning is he in the tender promises that spill from Castiel’s lips.

“If you did not exist,”--the soft brush of fingers across Dean’s cheek--”I would be nothing more than a point, lost, in a world that comes and goes.”

The breath in his lungs has caught, caught on the broken crevices of his heart. What does one do when one is shown the tenderness of an angel? This being of light and power that stands before him undoes him with the smiles that alight in his eyes.

“Cas...”

“Et si tu n’existais pas, j’essaierais d’inventé l’amour,” Castiel carries on, promises of love and gentleness and _wholeness_ spilling from his mouth to wash over Dean. “Like a painter, I would paint the world with the colours of your eyes, the shades of You.”

He cannot breath, he can breath like never before. He is being torn apart and remade, the light, the grace, the _peace_ flowing around him is all encompassing. He has been here before, held in loving arms while the blackness and miasma of unfathomable depths attempted with their meager power to pull him back to their cold shadows. But what could they do in the face of love and devotion? A shining presence, a soul untarnished by the very fires of Hell were all the match for the foul breath that flew from the realm that the LORD God had forsaken.

“If you did not exist, tell me for whom I would exist?” Castiel continues.

The barest brush of lips and Dean is sinking into fire, pure fire. Castiels’ eyes hold a tenderness which will be the undoing of all that Dean has fought for, he thinks. To have the love of the thursday angel, the devotion that will break him apart, Dean thinks that all the hounds of hell and servants of god and even the damned wild horses could not make him give it up.

“If you didn’t exist, I would never love, but wander desolate in the arms of strangers,” Dean says, no longer in control of his words.

Yet so in control of his words that he finally recognizes them as the truth that they are. From the moment he was held close in the shadowy abyss of the demon dark, and a figure stepped through the sparks in a sigil-covered barn, he was lost--they were lost.

“And if you did not exist, I could pretend to be me but I would be false,” Castiel’s voice is rich, with a warm rhythm that curls itself around the base of Dean’s spine, the pads of his fingertips, the curves of his lips. He breaths in the angel’s love and breaths out his own, pulling the angel down to meet him on the mattress.

Side by side they lay the angel and the hunter, and Dean knows this is right, Dean knows this will be the end of him, of the angel. The fall is coming and Dean can feel it, feel it as even now he feels the fire in his veins, the curl of it low in his gut. The rise is coming as well, that he can feel in his soul, the lightness and the hope that sweeps through him. What experience in this that should alight his every sense, what spell has Castiel cast over him with his eyes of blue ocean gems. Dean is not one to wax poetic and yet...

“If you did not exist, I would be lost without you, a colour created by a painter to never be allowed to live again, lost in the hairs of brush,” Dean says, twining their fingers together.

“Et si tu n’existais pas,” Castiel exhales the words on a breathless whisper, “je crois que je l’aurais trouvé. Le secret de la vie, le pourquoi, simplement pour te créer et pour te regarder.”

Castiel hands move over Dean’s skin, the rich cadence of the foreign syntax rising and falling with each breath. _I have found the secret to life_ , his hands say, _the why of my existence_. _To find you, be with you, feel you with my being_ , his feather light kisses whisper into Dean’s skin. _Simply to create you, to see you, to know you_ , the grace soaks the words into Dean’s soul.

Why has he never seen this before, bereft for all this time—they would have been as two shades in the night doomed to divergent paths, never to meet in the dark.

“Castiel, I give myself to you,” and in saying this Dean knows the power behind his words, they are binding and he has never wanted anything to be so permanent in his life. He wants to drown in the depths of Castiel’s eyes, his essence, his glowing existence.

“Then I am without gift to return,” Castiel says, an almost sadness in his eyes. “For I have already giving myself wholly to you.”

“I ask nothing in return,” Dean says. Pauses a moment, then: “this is a ritual isn’t it? A sacrifice.”

“I am giving you everything I have, Dean,” Castiel says. He sits up, a small ceramic jar in his hand now, which he opens. Releasing the scent of the pungent oils into the room, Dean recognizes this for what it is.

“No. Stop it right now, Cas. I told you I wasn’t going to let you give up your grace to help me stop Lucifer.”

“It is not my grace that I give up,” Castiel says, dipping a finger into the ceramic jar. “It is everything, and I do so willingly.”

“Did we not just go through a whole poem of not existing?” Dean questions shrilly.

“It’s not a poem, Dean. It’s a love song by a deceased French singer,” Castiel replies in his matter of fact tone. “I found it fitting for the moment.”

“Don’t make me choose between you and Sammy, please.”

“I’m taking that choice from you.” Castiel has drawn an unknown sigil on his torso and is now moving to Dean’s. “You have given me life, Dean Winchester, and for that I am more grateful than you will ever know. To have felt completeness, to have shared in the most intimate of moments, that is the greatest gift you could have given me.”

Dean is at a loss for words, a blush creeping up his cheeks. Had he known that falling into bed with Castiel would end in this, that their lovemaking would result in the cessation of the angel’s existence, Dean would have run to ends of the earth and jumped over the side to avoid this fate.

“Castiel, I cannot live without you!” Dean exclaims in a rush, hoping that a change to his usual speech will somehow distract the angel enough to stop this entirely insane act. “What grey world do you wish to condemn me without your presence?”

“I will live on in your memories, as it was always meant to be,” Castiel says drawing a cross gently on Dean’s forehead. “It was always going to end in sorrow.”

“Stop. Stop it right now Cas!” Dean says, sitting up and smearing the oil in the hopes of breaking the ritual.

“What are you doing? Dean, no, they must not be imprecise!” Castiel for his part, is looking frantic, like he is about to pounce on Dean.

“Why would you do this to me? Condemn to walk through a world where every sigh of the wind might trick me into thinking that it was you calling my name? To wish that the touch of rain on my cheeks was the touch of your lips? No way, Cas. You promised me so much more than that and you’re staying right here to make good on it,” Dean finishes with his back to Castiel and his fists clenched at his sides.

“Dean this is the only way I know of that will give you enough strength to send Lucifer back to his cage,” Castiel explains, gently wrapping his arms around Dean’s waist.

“No.”

“Dean—”

“No, Cas. No. I don’t give a shit if that’s the way that it was always going to be. I was always going to be Michael’s prom dress and that’s changed. We can _change_ things.”

Castiel wraps his arms tighter around Dean.

“Please,” is Dean’s broken plea. End this.”

The room shifts, becomes a grey-blue mist that envelopes them entirely, and Dean can feel the finality in his very bones, the building magic behind the ritual undoing itself. The room before him starts to even out, become the familiar shape of the motel room again, and Dean can feel his breath even out with it, his gut is unclenching and he feels as if he may faint with the relief of it. The world is clearing itself of the oppressive poetry that had fallen over the room, the formality was falling away from their words and Dean is practically floating, elated to be leaving it behind.

For Castiel’s part, he guides them to sit upon the bed again, and looks at Dean with resigned eyes, hands in his lap.

“This path with cause you far more pain, Dean,” he says with a tightness in his voice.

“Don’t even do that again, Cas. I don’t care how much pain I have to go through—it wouldn’t be near the pain of losing you,” Dean says with a stricken voice and the remnants of poetry and formality rest heavy on his tongue. “Besides, Sammy would never let me hear the end of it if I let you go off and sacrifice yourself for us,” he ends with false cheer; a attempt to rid himself of the potential reawakening of the ritual that clings to his words.

“I meant what I said,” Castiel says with a sigh. “I have nothing of myself left to give.”

“I only want the touch of your fingers and the kiss if your lips, Cas. Don’t trick me into giving that up ever.”

“I did not mean to trick you, Dean. I simply wanted to cause you the least amount of pain.”

Dean cannot bring himself to imagine a world where he would ever willingly let Cas leave him, and he sees clear as day that what he has with him is a gift, maybe even blessed by the heavenly father himself. Turning, he pulls Cas into a fierce hug and tumbles them to the lay on the soft mattress.

“The world would be a horribly cold and empty place without you, you know.”

“As without you,” Castiel says and holds on just as tight, questioning if he would ever be able to find the will to leave this man’s side again.

There in the cold of the dawn, where it seems all the colour of the world is washed out save for the blue-grey that covers everything, two bodies will curl together and cling to one another, the only colour in a dreary hotel room.

“If you didn’t exist, Cas, tell me why I would ever continue to?” Dean asks and Castiel smiles into his chest, relief washing the guilt away.

**Author's Note:**

> This is definitely not where I thought I was going with this - I just needed to get this song out of my head. I've realized that if left to my own devices, I will inevitably make a story horribly angst-ridden and so this turned into an exercise of fighting the story into a 'happy' ending. I addition, I'm coming to learn that it is really hard to undo the university training of never using contractions and writing in a formal manner (like that). Dean is especially difficult to write. Maybe one day I'll re-train myself to manage a story more so than an essay on the nature of governance. Practice, practice.
> 
> In addition, I should mention that I find the song in no way too poetic or oppressive, it is in fact one of the more lyrically beautiful songs ever written (in my opinion). But then again, I think that Joe Dassin is a gift.


End file.
